


Adrift

by PeniG



Series: Akashic Records [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Historical, Hurt/Comfort, I think this qualifies this time, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-11-01 22:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG
Summary: Aziraphale has too many duties to too many conflicting interests, St. Patrick banishes the Serpent of Eden from Ireland, Crowley's a mess, and Heaven, at best, only skims reports.





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> Not Catholic, not Irish, not a sailor. When I realized what came next I read the Confesio ( https://www.confessio.ie/etexts/confessio_english#01 )  
and the Letter to Coroticus ( https://www.confessio.ie/etexts/epistola_english# ), figured out where my story started, and then wrote it to see who St. Patrick needed to be for the purposes of the story. It’s the only way I know to write a fictionalization of an historical figure. Patrick was taken as a slave to Ireland as a teen-ager, was led by a mysterious voice to escape, and then by a dream to return when he was older and literate.
> 
> Anacreon’s song copied wholesale from http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/McEvilley_Greek-Anthology.html#anakreontea . He’s a superappropriate poet for these two!

The problem is, that he’s as proud as he is horrified.

No, wait.

The problem is that he’s as horrified as he is proud.

No, wait.

The _problem_ is that his first impulse of running forward screaming_ No_ and his _duty_ to stand and watch approvingly and his _desire_ to stand between them and make everyone calm down and adjourn for a restorative drink and some nibbles have him in a three-way paralytic vice.

The problem _is_ that Crowley’s legs are fusing together, his writhing smells like burning, and Patrick has a perfect right to do this but_ how on earth is Patrick doing this_ and Aziraphale can’t breathe for the awe and the terror of seeing _his_ human squeeze_ his_ demon back into his demonic aspect, the smoked lenses falling and breaking as the face changes shape, Crowley morphing into Crawly, hissing curses, and his demonic power goes from fighting the impossible weight of a miracle emanating from a human vessel, to fending, to flailing, to _failing_ as his hands (his essential reliable human _hands_!) go the way of his recalcitrant legs and he falls, a serpent as long as a man, black and red, steaming in the rain.

_Go to ground,_ Aziraphale wails inside his head. _Why don’t you burrow? Go on, you don’t have to let him discorporate you! You’ve lost, it’s time to flee, you don’t mind fleeing!_

“Begone,” says Patrick; says, not shouts, no dramatics, he is a holy man doing his holy job, pointing to the gray horizon of the heaving sea, and the Serpent of Eden twists in the sound of the word to plunge toward the jetty. The townsfolk, as stunned as Aziraphale, scramble out of the way and then run after him. Someone picks up a stone; but Patrick says: “Hold your hands.” The great snake slithers to the end of the nearly-empty jetty. The boats will be home soon, but now it’s women and children, and Patrick says: “Hold,” and they hold as the Serpent of Eden plunges into the sea, screaming at the agony of salt in wounds, to zigzag through the waves in a cloud of spray and steam. They run to the end of the jetty to watch the wonder; but Patrick looks over at Aziraphale, who is invisible, Sees him, and bows.

Aziraphale bows in return, not astonished that Patrick, who knew a demon when he Saw one and banished him from human shape and Ireland, should also See an angel, though he never has before. Or perhaps he has, out of the corner of his eye, because he walks over with the look of someone recognizing his oldest friend, bends his graying head, and would kneel if Aziraphale didn’t stop him. “None of that, my dear! You have done well, and don’t need me.”

Patrick knows the voice, though it is many, many years since Aziraphale stood by him amid the sheep and told him the ship was ready to bear him away from slavery; and had used a different voice to call him to return to Ireland. “But I am weak, and ignorant,” he says, as the children shout and the women wonder and the wake of the Serpent crosses the waves that the east wind turns choppy.

“Aren’t we all?” Aziraphale is warm with love and wonder for this fragile powerful passionate human as he embraces him. “For all that is yet to come, you can be enough, if you can hold your heart true,” he promises. “I can be more useful elsewhere, so I’m leaving. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be alone.”

Patrick smiles his heartbreakingly joyful smile and does not watch Aziraphale walk away, but joins the townsfolk on the jetty.

Aziraphale runs.

Most of this stint in Ireland has been spent hemmed up between walls, getting literacy off to a good strong start; but one thing he learned long ago is, that when surrounded by water, it is best to have claim to a boat. He’d stowed it on a rough shingly beach no one else would frequent due to the seals; but they don’t mind him, the calves following him in curiosity while their mothers only lift their heads long enough to determine that what he does is no concern of theirs. He flips the light vessel, hide on wickerwork, and drags it down to the water’s edge, stepping the mast and raising the sail with a miracle, paying no heed whatever to the part of his brain saying, in another angel’s voice: _You soft-headed idiot, get back to your scriptorium! You don’t have authorization for a snake hunt!_

The rain falls harder, the east wind rises, the ever-icy sea spits back at the sky, the fishermen turn for home, he smells Crowley burning, and a desert-spicy aura flickers on the horizon like a distress beacon.

He’s accustomed to hoarding his miracle budget for emergencies, so he has plenty of power in stock now and feels no hesitation in launching into the teeth of the wind. A few yearling seals follow him as he wrestles the cranky little boat from wave to wave, keeping the water out, and persuading one small area of wind to blow backwards as he steers for the fading aura.

If Gabriel appeared in the boat right now, demanding to know what he thinks he’s doing, what would he say? _I have to make sure he’s really gone? What if he tries to circle back around and comes for revenge?_ The imaginary Gabriel in his head booms: _Don’t worry about that! I’ll smite him to make sure!_ He _would_, too, the, um, conscientious servant of Heaven. _I need to find out why he didn’t run to Hell. You didn’t see his face, you don’t know him, something more is going on here. Please, I have this in hand, I can always get him talking but he’ll clam up if you’re here, let me deal with it._ Yes, that would do. Probably. Truth is huge and complex. No one ever speaks it all.

Ireland dwindles into sea-spray and rainclouds. The smell of burning almost drowns in the smell of the sea, and the aura, though near, is weaker and smaller.

A seal breaks the surface beside the boat, reveling in the waves that even now are swamping a land-loving serpent. Aziraphale, unskilled at animal work and already pulled three directions at once, gets wet in order to reach out to him and the other seals in the area, focused so hard on conveying a sense of Crowley and the necessity of bringing him to the boat without doing further damage to him that he doesn’t know whether the beasts experience a plea or a command. When the seal barks and dives into the waves, Aziraphale shuts out the rain again, furls the sail, makes himself as near as he can into a seal-and-Crowley specific beacon, and hunkers down in the rocking, tossing, rotating boat to wring his hands and brood over the things he might have done to distract Crowley from Patrick, had he been more alert, wiser, braver, faster, holier, _better..._

He is a Guardian. If those he is responsible for need _saving_, he has failed.

\---  
Three seals brought Crowley to him, pushed and lifted and occasionally tossed by eager whiskery noses as they heeded his_ no harm_ instruction. “Bless you, bless you, you precious creatures,” cried Aziraphale, leaning half out of the boat to raise him, one hand supporting the head and the other the middle, the length between and beyond submerged still, and he had to miracle the boat steady, not to mention realizing it wasn’t nearly big enough; but the seals were not done helping, lifting with their noses, and did not leave with their blessing until Aziraphale was wrapped in great coils of slick black limp cold snake.

Stabilized and bigger, the boat bobbed amid rough waves, the sail miracled into a sheltering dome, Aziraphale’s own radiance filling the space beneath with a warm glow to combat the cold of the Irish Sea and to illuminate the damage.

Which was bad.

Which was very, very bad.

The amount of raw power Patrick had accessed in response to recognizing a demon, combined with ignorance of both snake and demonic anatomy, had created a readily recognizable, power-scorched, peeling, salt-stung, Serpent of Eden skin and musculature stretched over a hopelessly mangled, contracted, and malformed Crowley skeleton, with too many long bones and not enough ribs or vertebrae. Only Crowley’s own skill in manipulating his corporation, Aziraphale suspected, had rendered him mobile at all. But no such skill operated now. A rapid stutter of nostrils gasped air. A failing pulse fluttered in an entirely inappropriate location. The scaled eyes stared, unresponsive to light.

Shocked, and no wonder, but alive. Crowley was tough as only the flexible could be, and Aziraphale had over 4000 years of experience in miraculous and practical medicine. He could do this. He _could_. He cracked his knuckles and got to work.

\---

Rain drummed on the sailcloth dome, which should have been saturated, but was not. The air inside felt almost as warm as the tepidarium of a Roman bath, and should have been stuffy, but was not. The boat remained as steady as if hung from a gimbal, though it should have capsized three times by now.

Keeping these things going was a constant steady drain on Aziraphale’s Heavenly budget. He’d used up his entire personal reserve getting Crowley to his current state: human form drawn out of serpent, each bone neatly meeting each other bone it was supposed to meet, each muscle and organ whole and properly anchored in its proper place, skin almost unscarred, breath and heartbeat regular, neural pathways clear, all connections smooth, aura barely larger than body but stable, curled in the bottom of the boat on a nest of fleece in a warm black tunic and socks.

If he had solid ground beneath him everything would be easier. Not easier enough, though. He’d never been audited; but if someone should think to do it, he wasn’t answerable to anyone else for what he did with his own power. If he chose to use it on a demon who, who he had _taken prisoner_, that was entirely his own affair. His heavenly allowance could keep them afloat as long as necessary to rebuild that reserve.

So Aziraphale leaned against the mast and sang for hours. Replenishing his strength would go faster if he didn’t have to provide the music himself; but the arts were restorative in all their forms and singing the only one presently available. He’d already run through all the suitable Irish melodies (avoiding religious and love songs, because odds were good Crowley could hear in his sleep) and now dipped deeper into space and time, with work songs from the Andes, drinking songs from Jerusalem, ballads from Mesopotamia, Roman marches.

Crowley stirred. Aziraphale laid his hand on his forehead - technically not necessary to check for a fever, but the feel of skin cool, but not too cool, under his palm was reassuring confirmation of his visual data. “You’re all right, my dear. You’re healing beautifully.”

Crowley hissed, and for a moment seemed about to wake; but in the end only turned to achieve a position that would not have been possible in a normal human, which seemed to satisfy the urges of his improbable spine. Aziraphale smiled down at him.

He could have really gone for some soup, but settled for a song from a warm country. He had never spent long in Greece, but he _had_ heard Anacreon perform once; a hot summer evening over a plate of bread and olives and a cup of astringent wine, and though he never saw him he knew Crowley (Crawly, then) had been in town, too, near enough to hear the song and the lyre and the children in the street.

_Bring me Homer’s lyre, yes, bring it,_   
_But leave that string of blood out_   
_Bring a cup of versing rules_   
_Oh and mix some metres in it_   
_I will sing, then I’ll be dancing_   
_Not a drop of sense left in me_   
_I will dance to horn and zither_   
_Crying out the cries that wine makes_   
_Bring me Homer’s lyre, yes, bring it_   
_Oh but take that string of blood out_

Crowley’s feet twitched in time to the music. Aziraphale threw in a repeat of the lyre riff, smiling as he patted the wooly ankle; whereupon Crowley lashed out with a hiss, his face momentarily snakelike; but barely had he struck than he recoiled and fell back shaking, eyes yellow rim-to-rim save for the slash of pupil. The boat rocked as he scrambled to the furthest part of the boat, pressing himself against the skin side and hissing.

“Shh, shhh, it’s all right, you’re all right.” Aziraphale held his hands open and limp in plain sight, his heart skipping a beat in fear - had Patrick done some essential damage, beyond his power to aid? “Crowley. Crowley. You’re safe. I’m here. You’re safe. Crowley. You’re safe. It’s only me.”

Crowley stared without apparent recognition for far too long, forked tongue flicking in and out, but he was too weak to hold himself on guard indefinitely in the absence of threat. The yellow of his eyes shrank to an iris and he shook his head, passing his hands once or twice over his face, as if assuring himself that he_ had_ a face. “Aziraphale,” he said.

“Yes, my dear, I’m here. Are you still in pain?”

A shudder passed through his body, head to toe and back again, and he glared from between red tendrils of hair, frizzy with damp. “You _watched._”

“I did,” Aziraphale admitted. “I didn’t want to. But you approached Patrick on his own turf, he Saw you, and he dealt with you. I had no _right_ to interfere.”

“But he - _how_ could he - you _helped_ him?”

“No, my dear. I don’t know how he did it. It’s beyond me, I’m afraid. Come lie down. You’re very weak, still.”

“M’fine.” But he slid back onto the fleeces. “You might have warned me. ‘Bout him.”

“I didn’t _know_!”

“How could you _not know_? He’s _your_ blessed pet human!” Crowley twitched and fidgeted, trying not to let Aziraphale see that he was checking all his limbs and digits and parts, reassuring himself that he was in his own chosen form.

Aziraphale pretended not to notice. “He’s not a _pet_! All I did was realize he’d be able to do great things if he were freed! And he_ has_ and he _will_ \- but he’s never done anything remotely like this before!” _And if you go around being jealous of humans I pay special attention to, my dear, you must be prepared for consequences. Though I would never have given you such dire ones._

“I hope he never does again,” grumbled Crowley, flexing his toes. “Angel, what the flaming whatever did you do to my feet?”

“Oh, are they not right yet? He didn’t understand your anatomy at all and made a hideous mess of it, but I did the best I could. We can work on them together till they’re back to normal.”

Crowley ran his perfectly-reconstructed hands along the thick dark wool of the socks, prodding the structure beneath. “No, I - I think you made them better? The bones, they aren’t, aren’t fighting each other -“ He looked over at Aziraphale. “You watched him do - _that_ \- to me. And then you - came to find me.”

Aziraphale made a helpless gesture. “Well,_ Patrick_ didn’t need my help anymore, did he?”

“I will never understand you.” Crowley collapsed into the fleece, eyes already closing.

“Fortunately, you don’t have to. Try to sleep some more.”

The eyes flew open. “What if I, if I, when I wake, if I’m not me?”

“Who else would you be?”

“I _wasn’t_ me. He took - he took _me_ away. From me. I was, I forgot who I am. I was Crawly. Before you, before Eden, before - like, like the day I Fell.” His teeth chattered with the force of his trembling. “I _forgot_ me, I forgot _you_, I forgot -“

Aziraphale knelt beside him, taking his hands. “It’s all right. You remember now.”

“But I wouldn’t! If you hadn’t come after me - “ Crowley’s breath came short, his irises expanding again.

“But I did. I _did_. And you’re yourself again. All’s well. Go back to sleep. You like sleeping.”

Crowley clung to his hands as if he were still drowning. “What if I forget again? While I’m asleep?”

“Then you’ll remember again, when you wake up. Crawly’s your past, my dear! You’re Crowley now. You always will be. No human or angel or demon can take that from you.”

“Always is a long, long time.” The trembling subsided. He closed his eyes. When he spoke, he sounded younger than he had ever been. “Will you sing some more? I like when you do the instruments with your voice box.”

“Certainly. Is there something you’d particularly like to hear?”

“Do you know the one -“ he shifted to a dialect that hadn’t been heard for centuries - “about the goat going up the hillside?”

Aziraphale laughed. “I wish I could forget it! Is _that_ one of _yours_?”

Crowley’s grin was shaky, but real. “I wish! Learned it from a goat boy. Do a zither.”

Aziraphale flexed his throat - it had been awhile since he did a zither; this wasn’t a skill one trotted out often, living cheek-by-jowl with humans - and started a monotonous low strumming before bringing in the lyrics in a shrill boyish pitch. _“The goat went up the hillside, the goat went up the hillside, the goat went up the hillside, and what do you think he saw...?”_

\---  
“Angel?”

“I’m here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Aimlessly drifting in the Irish Sea.”

“Irish Sea’s cold.”

“Yes. Yes, it’s icy cold, but we’ve got a cozy little bubble here, easy to keep warm.”

“_You_ keep it warm.”

“Yes, I do.”

“For _me_.”

“I don’t like to be cold, either, you know! Don’t let it create a sense of obligation.”

“_Blech._”

“Your color’s looking good. Do you feel better?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m all right. Bit stiff. Got any of that retsina left?”

“What? Where would I get retsina in the Irish Sea?”

“I smelled it. When I woke up. First time - I_ know_ I smelled it.”

“I believe you, but I don’t have any.”

“Hmph. I can fix that.”

“_Crowley_ -“

_Snap!_ “See? M’good.”

“What I _see_ is you going white as a ghost. Leave the miracles to me for awhile. A drink probably will do you good, though.”

“Damn straight it will... Hmm. Had better, had worse.”

“A drink of broth might be better, though.”

“No accounting for taste. Have some.”

“If I drink your retsina and then miracle up some nice hot broth, will you drink it?”

“I might.”

“All right, pass it over.” _Sip. Sputter_! Crowley snorted with laughter. “You foul deceiver!” _Snap!_ “All right, try this.”

“What’re you -?“

“Drink, please. You promised.”

“I did _not_!...Give it here...Whoa! What the -?“

“I’ve been experimenting with miracled food. Chilis. From the Andes. In chicken broth. It should be very nutritious.”

“I can - whoa. I can taste this!”

“I think if you examine the sensation you’ll find it’s mostly pain. Drink up... That’s good... Better now?”

“Better now. Except now I want some beer.”

“Old style or new style?”

“I can go the rest of eternity without that old style beer porridge and never miss it. Say, you remember that one-eyed old woman in Lombardy?”

“Goodness, I’m not sure my miracle game is up to _her_ standards, but I’ll try!” _Snap, snap._ “There, that’s the best I can do. To your health.”

“...Didn’t quite make it, but s’drinkable.”

Aziraphale leaned against the mast, pretending not to watch him over the rim of the cup. Crowley made a good imitation of his normal self, but didn’t fidget as much as, by now, he should need to fidget; and his color came and went.

The longer Aziraphale went without reporting in, the more likely someone was to seek him out, and smite his patient. The sooner he turned the dome back into a sail and picked a destination, the better for everyone. “Why did you run for the sea?”

Crowley made deep, meaningful eye contact with the bottom of his cup. “Because Patrick didn’t want me on the land.”

“You could have burrowed down to Hell.”

“Not if I wanted to ever come back up again.” Crowley held out his empty cup. Aziraphale refilled it. Crowley drank it off, and held it out once more. Aziraphale refilled it, more slowly, waiting. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“I _like_ having new things to worry about.” Aziraphale blinked at him. Twice. He felt guilty about the surge of love this elicited; but experience told him that he could spend several hours wearing down defenses like water on stone, or he could bat his eyes and get what he needed instantly.

Crowley drank. “I couldn’t go down - like that.”

“If you’d done it as soon you realized you couldn’t beat him, the damage wouldn’t have been so bad -“

“No._ Not_ the damage. Well, all right, not _just_ the damage. I couldn’t, I can’t - if I _run away_, to Hell - run from a, a holy power, much less from a holy human - I might not - come back.”

“They’d - what would they do to you?”

He shrugged. “Nothing fun. Look. You’re here as a punishment. I’m here as a privilege. Privileges get revoked. Yeah, fine, I’m Satan’s pet snake, but what’ve I done for him lately? Eh?”

“Well, there’s -“

“I’m not looking for a list! I _know_ what I’ve done, but it’s not enough any more, is it? Not since, since I failed the Temptation in the Wilderness. That’s why I’m getting assignments and petty bureaucratic crap I never used to have to deal with. And now - _this_!” He drank, and held the cup out. “I need a win. A big one.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale filled Crowley’s cup, and drank from his own. “I can’t help you there.”

“I know. I don’t expect you to. You’ve already -_ this_ -“

“Pray don’t mention it.”

A few breaths shuddered in and out, as Crowley watched his face. “What will they do to you? If, you know -“

It was Aziraphale’s turn to shrug. “Nothing I won’t come back from. Don’t fret about it.”

“I don’t _fret_, I only - never mind.”

Aziraphale pressed his hand against the dome, feeling the sunlight on the other side. “I’ll have to report in shortly after making landfall.”

Crowley sighed, and fidgeted. “Whenever you’re ready, angel. I can take care of myself.”

_You’re not ready. I’m not ready. I don’t want to be ready. I want to sail around the world with you, free you from Hell, skive off from Heaven, hear new stories, sing new songs, try new dishes, never ever ever write this report._ “What land would you like to take care of yourself in?”

“Dunno. Cornwall, maybe? Won’t be as damp and cold as Gwynedd or the Hebrides, anyhow.”

“Cornwall. Yes, that should be doable. Tuck yourself down into those fleeces - the wind’ll be fresh.”

“I’m not an invalid!” But he miracled away his empty cup, and curled up warmly. “What happened to my lenses?”

_Snap._ “They broke. Will these do?”

Crowley slid them over his eyes, and pretended to go to sleep; but Aziraphale felt him watching as he converted their bubble refuge back into a sailing craft; too small, really, for sea travel, but as big as he could expect himself to handle. The sun was bright and cool, the waves about as gentle as this small sea got this time of year, and the wind blew from the northwest, which should bear them to Cornwall all right, well before sundown, regardless of their precise location. He set the sail, unshipped the oar, and settled in to the stern to steer.

\---

Heaven was too bright, and too quiet, except for Gabriel, who was too tall and too loud. Sandalphon was too...Sandalphon. Aziraphale’s head ached and his stomach roiled and his eyes burned and to the best of his knowledge no other angel _ever_ felt _any_ of those things, but if he complained he would not only be whining, he would be subjected to a sales pitch on how wonderful the newest line of bodies was. Gabriel wore one, with a magnificent curly beard, and he was asking the same question all over again, barely even rephrased this time.

“I don’t _know_ how Patrick did it,” Aziraphale answered. “As I said in the report -“

“Now, now, now,” said Gabriel. “Nobody’s accusing you of anything.”

“I didn’t think -“

“But you have to admit, it’s peculiar, that ever since you went AWOL it’s been business as usual down there. No trace of overwhelming holy power like what came flaring off of Ireland three days ago.”

“I don’t dispute that. If you want me to conduct an investigation, I will. If you want me to assist someone else in an investigation, I will. I will do anything you tell me to do but I _can’t_ tell you what I don’t _know_.”

“C’mon. Aziraphale. We _get_ it. Everybody up here knows how you are about humans. How you get attached. It’s an occupational hazard. And Patrick’s your favorite, though I can’t imagine why.”

Responses crowded Aziraphale’s mouth:_ I don’t have favorites, I know passion and compassion when I see them, Patrick is doing excellent work, excuse me what were you just saying about overwhelming holy power? That was Patrick, whom I chose, and I chose well!_ Unable to guess which response, if any, was the right one, he only stared, opening and closing his mouth and trying not to wring his hands or wriggle or bat his eyes or make any of the other nervous movements that Sandalphon had warned him against making, time and time again.

“I mean,” Gabriel continued, filling the space in which Aziraphale might have tried to speak, “he’s not exactly your type, is he? Apart from being poor as dirt, you’re consistent about that! Not a scholar, not an artist - oh, yes, I notice a lot more than you think. And if anybody asked me, who you’d pick for your shot at grooming a human for sainthood, an illiterate slave isn’t what I’d have guessed. But you’ve made a pretty good thing of him, overall -“

“He’s not illiterate anymore! He’s _sensitive_ about that, and he’s worked so _hard_ -“

Gabriel chuckled indulgently, exchanging a look with Sandalphon, as if he thought Aziraphale had somehow proven his point, whatever it was. “I’m sure he’s a really good human. But - c’mon, nobody _blames_ you. You’ve been slaving away down there so long, caught up in all the petty day-to-day stuff, and here comes your old nemesis bearing down on your little Patrick - you got protective. Well, good for you! Who knew you had it in you to squash a demon after all this time? We’d been wondering, you know, _not_ that we think you’re a coward or anything, but the way you approach demons - honestly, stuffing that bear with honey and pulling the demon out while it was asleep? That _really_ wasn’t what we were expecting. It’s like you go out of your way to avoid any confrontation. But what you did to Crawly three days ago - that’s impressive. You should do that more often, not try to hand off the credit to your favorite human!”

Aziraphale stared at his smiling face and his magnificent curling beard, tried very hard not to explode, and succeeded, but did not enjoy it. “Excuse me. Am I to understand that you think I, I_ helped_ him do that to Crowley?”

“No, come on, of course not! We know you did it _for_ him and let him think it was him, or fed him the power, whatever, it all comes to the same thing. And you know me, I’m not one to second-guess the guy on the ground -“ (_Aziraphale did know that; it had been Gabriel’s reason for not giving Sandalphon more than a slap on the wrist for Sodom and Gomorrah_) “If you thought it was necessary, I won’t blame you for it. That Crawly needed taking down a peg or two.”

“Crowley.”

“What?”

“Crowley. He’s changed his name. I reported that five centuries ago.”

“Crawly, Crowley, what’s the difference? He’s still a demon. A pretty high-muckety demon who’s been a thorn in your side from the beginning. And you _finally_ gave him a good spanking. You should be proud!”

“But I didn’t. I _couldn’t_.” _I wouldn’t._ “Patrick Saw the Serpent of Eden, Hell’s most adept shapeshifter, and forced him into his most demonic form and then sent him packing. I have _never_ been able to do _anything_ like that!”

“I’ve always said, you weren’t working to your full potential.” Gabriel grinned at him.

“It’s all in the report! I don’t falsify reports!”

Gabriel waved the subject of reports aside airily. “_Sure_ you don’t. But think about it! What’s more likely? That you tried to make your little protégé look good? Or that an ordinary human tapped into heavenly power out of nowhere?”

“It’s not a question of_ probability_! It’s a question of _what happened_! And, and Faith is supposed to be a supremely powerful thing, isn’t it? Faith, Hope, Love, that’s the trifecta. Patrick has more of those in his little finger than, than you find in most towns. Why _shouldn’t_ he be able to tap into heavenly power when he needs it?”

“Because it doesn’t work that way. And let me ask you this - what happened to your personal reserve?”

“I, I beg your pardon?”

“You’re running on empty. Why should _that_ be, unless you passed everything on to Patrick?”

“Because...well, because.” _Because his patient had been too weak to leave when Aziraphale’d had to leave him, and needed every iota of strength Aziraphale could give him._ “I was, was chasing after Crowley with it. That’s in the report, too. I was afraid, well, he hadn’t discorporated and, and you didn’t see his face, you don’t _know_ him, I had to go after him and, and be _sure_ of him, and find out why he didn’t escape to Hell, but if it turned out to be a, a waste of resources, I wanted only _my_ resources to be wasted -“

“_Or._ You panicked after handing out all that miraculous power without permission and ran off and hid. I _get_ it. Everybody knows how conscientious you are. All the I’s dotted, all the T’s crossed, for four and a half millennia? And then _wham_, a big transgression like that?” Gabriel’s smile appeared to be carved into his face. “Angels have Fallen for less. You scared yourself. But now you can relax. You’ve gotten away with it - once.”

“But -“

“Just don’t let it happen again, understand, buddy?” Gabriel slapped Aziraphale on the back. “Sandalphon’ll take you down, got your next assignment all ready. Stay on it till you’re relieved this time, all right? All right! Great to see you, you’re doing a great job, don’t sweat the small stuff, am I right? See you around!” He retreated into his private office, and shut the door.

Sandalphon smiled his humorless smile. Aziraphale looked at the gleaming white floor, on which his shoes left faint black marks. “I have _never_ falsified a report.” Omitting irrelevant, confusing details was not falsification.

“Y’know, when you vanished, I thought for awhile you were finally getting your head on straight,” said Sandalphon.

“I didn’t_ vanish._ I was in the Irish Sea, hunting for -“

“Crawly, yes, I know. Just as well for me you didn’t find him. Odds on you getting discorporated in a fight with Crawly are a cool 5000 to 1. Nobody wants to make a payout like that.”

“Crowley. His name is _Crowley_. And - and he needs a big win.”

“What?”

“He needs -“ This was important intelligence. He’d put it in the report. Which no one, apparently, had read. Why did he feel like a traitor? This wasn’t about what how he felt about Sandalphon, or Gabriel, or Crowley. It was about what _his demon_ might do, when desperate enough. “Hell’s politics consist mostly of tearing each other down. This is his second big loss - _both_ times against a holy human. He needs a big win. He’s angry and he’s, he’s scared of his fellow demons, and he’ll be looking around for something. We need to be prepared for that.”

Sandalphon barked a laugh. “Turning into the Has-been of Eden, is he? We can handle him. C’mon, let’s get you back downstairs.”

“I was - I was hoping I could stop by the Records -“

“Do I look like I have time to stand around waiting for you?” _Why not? You stand around waiting for Gabriel._ “Nope, straight back downstairs with you, and good riddance. Somebody else’ll look after your precious Pat. I found you a nice grubby job, this time. And remember, all you have to do to get out of it -“ He drew his finger across his neck. “And then you’ll have a cushy deal up here with us.”

“Sounds delightful,” said Aziraphale, through clenched teeth. “By all means, tell me about this nice grubby job.”

-30-


End file.
